Retiring acupuncturist passes on the needle

Marsha Best, left, poses with Crystal Best Labranche at Be Well Acupuncture and Wellness Clinic in Azilda. Marsha, who started the business, has recently retired and Crystal is running the clinic now. A retirement party is being held for Marsha on Saturday.Ben Leeson/Sudbury Star

Born and raised in Chelmsford, she remembers travelling into Sudbury as a little girl with her mother, Gladys Stewart, who lived with multiple sclerosis and received acupuncture treatments to help with the symptoms.

“I used to think it was pretty cool and it was certainly a changing point in my life, to see how it helped her,” Marsha says. “My mom lived to 84 years old, which is pretty rare, with progressive MS.”

Those early trips for treatment inspired Marsha to study acupuncture, a key component of traditional Chinese medicine which uses thin needles to relieve pain and treat a host of other ailments. She travelled to Sri Lanka to train with masters there, before returning to the Sudbury area to serve thousands of clients over 30 years as a registered acupuncturist and inspiring her own daughter, Crystal Best Labranche, to follow in her footsteps.

The mother-daughter team ran Be Well Acupuncture and Wellness Clinic, formerly Magneto Therapy Inc., now located at 30 Notre Dame St. in Azilda, before Marsha retired this past spring, handing the reins of the business to Crystal.

“The first eight and a half years of my career, I never took a day off, worked six days a week, to build this,” says Marsha, who now lives in Espanola with her husband, Sandy. “Then, in the latter part of my career, I would take one week off in Christmas and one week off in August.”

Her final day was April 26, after which she and Sandy took a 54-day trek to Alaska.

“After four months off, I’m like, ‘I think I’m doing pretty well,’ because I’m a workaholic and I am now ready, at 59 years old, to say (goodbye),” Marsha says with a laugh. “But I’m not leaving the patients. The patients are in good, good hands.”

Before Marsha sets off on another road trip, she’ll get a proper send-off from Crystal and the other members of the Be Well wellness team, including chiropractor Renee Laframboise and massage therapist Crystal Foster, during a retirement party in the parking lot at 30 Notre Dame this Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Open to the public, the event will include a charity barbecue, face painting, a bouncy castle, popcorn, sno-cones and cotton candy, all in support of the YWCA.

“The beautiful thing about us is we all just did the holistic healing fair and it was like hanging out with friends,” Crystal says. “It was just such a good vibe and people say that, they’re like, ‘You guys work so well together,’ because we all complement each other, and what a wonderful thing to do for the community. That’s why I wanted to have this retirement party for my mom, and make it about giving back to women in Sudbury.”

“I just wanted to ride off into the sunset, but Crystal’s not allowing that,” Marsha adds with a laugh.

Crystal considers it a fitting tribute, however, for the woman who has been her mentor during more than 16 years of clinical acupuncture experience and continuing education, including studies with Chinese masters in Beijing.

“I have been really fortunate that my parents who are both entrepreneurs and they both made a lot of sacrifices in order to spend a lot of time with our family,” Crystal says. “You work in a family business and it says a lot about a business and a family when you can work so well together and want to hang out on weekends together and growing up, I wanted to see the magic that my mom did.”

From an early age, she marvelled at the way her mother, whose acupuncture treatments incorporated both traditional Chinese and western theory and methods, could help relieve a person’s pain or other symptoms.

“It was amazing, seeing a patient walk in in a terrible state, then seeing them with this emotional thankfulness, for their pain relief and their quality of life. I always say the person who walks in this door and the person who walks out, that is the most rewarding thing ever.”

Crystal’s own young daughters often accompany her to the clinic.

“I try to incorporate them as much as I can,” she says.

“I’m very grateful for what the universe has brought me.”

Be Well Acupuncture and Wellness Clinic is fully accessible and includes several treatment rooms, as well as spaces for massage therapy and chiropractic treatments.